Moon-marked 2: The Demon's Halo

Chapter 11

Content warning: Cutting and blood drinking in a ritual context. If you need more info, let me know.

The first few days after they returned to America were so full that Becky almost would have forgotten about the full moon if her phone and Seth's hadn't fired off their reminders. She'd had to go to the McMahons to beg forgiveness for her hasty departure, but luckily Stephanie was feeling merciful and only warned her not to do it again. She had missed a bill payment, but that was easy enough to fix. To make things easier for Finn, she had gone to his place for an afternoon visit to placate Vero, who then asked her and Seth to spend a week with them in the summer. Another afternoon was spent getting acquainted with her skean; she didn't ask Finn where it came from, but it was elegant and enchanted to look like an EpiPen to anyone who didn't already know she was a werewolf.

On the morning of the full moon, which was one of their rare days off, she pulled the skean out from under her pillow and looked at it while Seth was still sleeping. It felt wrong to purposefully push down her wolf on one of her few free days, but it was better to test the binding when she didn't have an impending match to worry about. "Vampire time?" Seth murmured, rubbing his eyes as he woke.

"We—we don't have to. We can do it on another full moon," Becky insisted. She started to set the dagger on the table by his bed, but Seth pulled her and the dagger down to him. "Seth, I mean it—"

"And I mean this—" He kissed her slowly, wrapping her fingers around the dagger's hilt. "Come on, Bex. We didn't go through that rite for nothing. Finn will want to know if it worked."

"Okay." Becky unsheathed the dagger and pressed it lightly against Seth's wrist, hesitating. "You have to tell me if I've cut too deep or if I drink too much or—"

"I will. I promise."

It felt so wrong to be digging the blade into his skin, calling forth blood, but Becky sliced along the lower edge of the scroll. When Seth's blood started welling up, she carefully set the skean aside and fixed her mouth over the wound. Seth's free hand slid into her hair, fingers moving gently until she tried to pull back; then they tightened, trying to coax her back. "Are you sure you don't want to be dating a vampire?" Becky said, trying to lick her lips clean before Seth could see his blood on them. "I hear Paige is single. . . ."

Seth's eyes opened slowly, dark and unfathomably deep, and he barely let Becky clean the blade and put it back in its sheath before he pulled her on top of him. "I know exactly what I want."

"Well, it's not a work day, so. . . ." They stayed in bed for the rest of the morning, fucking off and on, and after having a late lunch, they spent most of the afternoon the same way. "I suppose we should go find a spot and test the theory," she murmured against his chest, "as much fun as this is." Normally she would never let herself be so reckless on a full-moon day, but drinking Seth's blood had made her feel strangely steady.

"True." They got up slowly and both dressed in casual clothes, grabbing Becky's wolf bag as a matter of course. Seth randomly chose the site from a few she trusted most near his house and they tried to keep everything as strict as before, but even the forest felt different to Becky. Seth must have sensed it too, because after he spread out her shifting blanket, he pulled her into his arms. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Too okay? I don't know. Maybe I just figured it wouldn't work. . . ." Then Becky shook her head. "I should still get undressed just in case."

Seth grinned, sitting down on the blanket. "Won't hear me complaining."

Laughing, Becky tugged off her clothes and dropped them beside Seth before curling up on the blanket, resting her head on his thigh. "This just feels so weird, to not be shifting when I have no reason not to."

"I'm sorry. Bad timing, I guess. But it's better to know, right?" Seth stroked her back steadily, the touch more affectionate than arousing, and they let the conversation drift to non-werewolf things, like upcoming rivalries and when they could sneak away to spend a week with Finn and Vero. Darkness fell, the full moon rose, and—"Nothing?" Seth asked. He had moved a bit away from Becky, just to be safe, but her demeanour hadn't changed all night.

Becky shook her head with a mixture of happiness over the success of the binding and a sense of loss over the transformation she could have enjoyed otherwise. "Nothing." She still waited, though, even getting to her feet and standing in a clearing so she could bask in the moonlight. The wolf was still there: she could feel it, confused and contained, occasionally pushing at the binding and eventually giving up, curling up to slumber until called again. The surge of gratitude she felt at that realization was almost intoxicating. At the moment, though, she had something else on her mind.

She should be able to have sex with Seth without fear of hurting him.

Seth was still watching her face for any sign of change, so he didn't realize she was pouncing on him until she had already knocked him backward and straddled him. "If I can't shift," she reasoned, pushing his shirt up, "I'll have to wear off all that extra energy some other way."

"Good thing it's not a work day," Seth answered with a laugh. "Of course, if we tell Paige—" He was cut short when Becky pulled his shirt over his head.

"Pretty sure we fucked five times in the morning alone," Becky said with a laugh, working on his shorts next. "At some point, I stopped keeping count."

"At some point, I stopped being able to count." It didn't take Seth long to kick off his shorts and then they were tangled together on the blanket, entwining so seamlessly it was like they had never left Seth's bed at all. They stayed there all night long, basking in the light of the full moon together for the first time, but definitely not the last.